It is usual for garments and other articles to be distributed from dry cleaning and other distribution centers to commercial, industrial and domestic customers on wire hangers. The wire hangers are often thrown out by the customers after use which is wasteful.
Attempts have been made in the past to supply the customers with appropriate racks on which the hangers may be stacked. The distributor then picks up the racks periodically and brings the hangers back to the distribution center for re-use.
However, a problem with the prior art racks is that the hangers may be stacked in them with their hooks facing in either direction. This requires manual labor at the distribution center, because after the hangers have been removed from the racks, they must be arranged so that all the hooks face in one direction before they can be hung on appropriate bars and re-used.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a rack which is constructed so that the wire hangers can be stacked in the rack only with their hooks facing in one direction. This greatly facilitates the handling of the hangers after they have been returned to the distribution center, because they need only to be removed from the racks and hung on the bars, without any re-orientation of the hangers being required.
Another object of the invention is to provide such a rack which may conveniently be nested into other like racks to conserve space when the racks are transported from one location to another.